Posts Tagged ‘Osama bin Laden’

We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush’s compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic. Uncontroversially, his crimes vastly exceed bin Laden’s, and he is not a “suspect” but uncontroversially the “decider” who gave the orders to commit the “supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole…”

During WWII the Jews were gassed and massacred on a huge scale; a genocide no-less. The perpetrators of these crimes were brought to the now famous Nuremburg trials to face justice. Later we saw the atrocities and genocide in Bosnia as the world looked on. Having read parts of the incredibly long judgement some of the crimes are stomach-churningly revolting. Foetus’ were practically ripped out of mother’s wombs and stomped on by the Christian Serbs. Suckling babies were stomped on before the eyes of their wavering parents and mothers repetitively gang-raped before their husbands and children. And these were not one-off events; this was systematic throughout the Serb forces.

Tadic, a Christian Serb conducted ethnic cleansing of Muslims in his home-town and later became a leader. He was caught and then tried at the Hague. A criminal he was indeed, but in order to be convicted of the various crimes against humanity he perpetrated he had to satisfy a burden of proof. It is remarkable analysing the verdict of his hearing. Out of the thirty-one counts, Tadic was found to be not guilty of twenty counts and guilty of eleven, which were arguably comparatively less severe in nature in some instances.